The Initiative in Reporting on Race and Criminal Justice, offered by the Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia University, aims to support local newsrooms and journalists working on projects that address racial and human rights abuses in the American criminal justice system. This initiative seeks to amplify the understanding of inequalities within the criminal justice system, particularly in areas such as law enforcement, prosecutorial practices, judicial issues, and incarceration. The project is focused on shedding light on these systemic problems in an effort to foster institutional change in the United States.

The initiative provides financial assistance to local newsrooms and independent journalists to undertake major investigative reporting projects that highlight these racial and human rights injustices. The program is designed to create awareness about specific policies and practices within the criminal justice system and hopes to encourage constructive changes to improve justice for marginalized communities.

The Lipman Center's program is supported by Arnold Ventures and offers grants annually. These grants are intended to fund yearlong reporting projects, and each grant can range from $30,000 to $50,000. The funds can be used for various project-related expenses, including data acquisition, analysis and visualization, hiring additional staff, filing FOIA requests, or travel (if public health conditions allow). The initiative is also a means of enabling professional collaboration among journalists, encouraging their work on complex issues related to race and criminal justice.

To apply for the grant, journalists or newsrooms must submit a proposal that includes a 1,000- to 1,500-word description of the project, a breakdown of the budget, a list of staff involved, and the proposed publication or broadcast date. The application can be submitted electronically via email to the provided address or mailed to the Lipman Center’s office in New York. Applications are open to all local newsrooms, and the grant-funded projects must be completed within a year.

The program’s deadlines for applications are from January 17 to March 3, 2025. Applications can be sent by email to lipmancjg@columbia.edu or by postal mail to the Lipman Center Criminal Justice Initiative at Columbia University’s Pulitzer Hall. In 2024, five grants totaling $188,000 were awarded to recipients such as the Invisible Institute, Open Vallejo, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, and independent journalists Jordan Michael Smith, Ryan Kost, and Willow Grace Higgins.